


Le Bon Vivant

by bokeiji



Category: Formula E RPF
Genre: HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARAH, Idiots in Love, Introspection, M/M, Pining, no proofreading we die like women, this took me way too long to write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 05:15:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18204020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bokeiji/pseuds/bokeiji
Summary: António's visit to Robin in Maastricht takes an unexpected romantic turn...





	Le Bon Vivant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [montecarlos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/montecarlos/gifts).



> Happy birthday to my favourite person in the world, Sarah!! I hope you will have the most incredible day!! Please enjoy my first gaydretti fic! I love you <3
> 
> Ps. Robin better wins today!

António tries to suppress a yawn as he looks out of the window of the Intercity to see the flat landscapes that make up most of the Netherlands slowly making place for the sloping hills of Limburg. He had a late flight to the Netherlands yesterday and stayed at a hotel near Schiphol airport so he could get on his way to Maastricht early this morning to meet up with Robin. Despite his fatigue, Ant isn’t able to completely fall asleep and he’s feeling a sort of unexplainable restlessness that doesn’t go away even when he put on his music. 

Still, he keeps dozing off as the train is approaching its destination and it’s around half past 10 when the train arrives at the station. Ant tries to spot Robin on the platform, but the annoyingly tall Dutch people keep blocking his view. He grabs his suitcase as soon as the train comes to a halt and finds Robin standing a bit further down the platform, eyes squinting against the morning sun that lights up his face. Ant walks towards him and feels himself starting to smile as he goes in for a hug by way of greeting. 

“Hey,” Robin mumbles against his shoulder and Ant squeezes him a bit tighter in return. 

“Hey,” he replies before moving away from Robin, noticing the other man is retreating his arms a bit slower. He guesses Robin is probably tired like always and his suspicions are confirmed when Robin yawns.

Ant chuckles. “Why did you want to meet up so early again, you night owl?”

Robin’s cheeks turn slightly pink. “I told you we had plans,” he retorts. 

Ant chuckles, but decides not to comment on Robin’s surprisingly cute blush. “So where are we going first, mister travel agent?”

“To my house.” His cheeks turn an even darker shade. “I mean, uh, I thought you might want to drop off your stuff first,” Robin stumbles over his words. 

“Sounds like a good plan, I imagine you don’t want to drag my suitcase around all day,” Ant winks, earning him a slap on his arm from the shorter man. Still, he notices a small smile appearing on Robin’s face.

Robin lives in a nice suburban type of neighbourhood located right next to the station, consisting mostly of early twentieth century style terraced houses with high trees in their front gardens. They decide to walk there, before continuing to the city centre. Ant is able to take a small peek inside of Robin’s apartment -the place looked cleaner than he had expected of Robin- before his ex-teammate ushers him out again, telling him they have to rush. 

Robin had been surprisingly mysterious about their plans for the weekend, but he’s excited to visit his old teammate’s hometown for the first time and according to his quick google search, Maastricht is supposed to be a beautiful city. 

As they continue on their way Ant realises the city indeed doesn’t disappoint; as they’re walking over an old stone bridge crossing the Maas, Ant has a beautiful view of the city and the old houses lining up at the promenade. The morning sun makes the water in the river sparkle, making the town seem like something straight from a fairy tale. He can see why Robin loves this place so much.

The atmosphere between them is nice, they are chatting a bit, catching up on each other’s lives, but Ant can’t help feeling something seems off about Robin. He keeps trailing off and avoids eye contact. He has never seen him nervous -except when talking to the press- and he wonders if something happened. He wants to be a good concerned friend and ask Robin about it, but he notices they’ve arrived at their destination as Robin slows down. 

Robin has led him to a small dock along the promenade where they’re advertising for a tour boat, which makes António realise why they had to rush. A middle aged balding man in uniform standing in front of the walkway greets them in Dutch and he politely smiles back while Robin takes the word. 

“Ik had een reservering gemaakt voor de brunchboot voor twee personen?” Robin says hesitantly as he retreats two printed tickets from his bag and hands them to the man.

The man smiles at them before scanning their tickets. “Welkom aan boord! Jullie zijn precies op tijd, dus zoek snel een plekje uit.”

Ant tries but fails to figure out what Robin and the man were saying, but before he can ask, Robin grabs his wrist and pulls him over the walkway. It’s a weird gesture coming from Robin -he normally isn’t the one to initiate physical contact- but a surprisingly pleasant one nevertheless. Robin’s fingers are warm and firm around his wrist and he finds himself missing the contact when Robin drops his hand once they’re inside. 

Once inside the boat, they are lead to their booth by a woman in navy uniform. It’s a nice spot next to the window and they sit down on the red leather benches on opposite sides of the wooden table. Ant had noticed the long tables lined up with all kinds of breads, meats and eggs while they were walking to their booth and can’t help but grin at how Robin-like it is to organise something to do with food. 

“I was almost scared you wanted to starve me, but I guess that’s impossible here,” he laughs, looking over at the food-filled tables. 

“You think I would go a whole morning without food?” Robin shoots back, grinning at him.

“I don’t think you would survive that long honestly.”

They’re both laughing now and Ant is happy they broke the unexplainable tension that was hanging between them earlier. Robin seems a lot more relaxed than before and they are back to joking like usual. 

After the boat takes off, they are being told the buffet is open and they are free to walk over to the food table to pile up their plates. Ant can’t help but take a picture of Robin scooping up some food and posts it as an Instagram story with the caption “Always eating, AGAIN” and their location. 

Their coffee has already arrived when they come back to their booth and when Ant looks out of the window he sees they’ve left the urban area. They put down their plates and Ant notices, while his plate mainly consists of healthy food -bread, yoghurt, scrambled eggs, and tomatoes- when he looks over to Robin’s plate, he finds his plate stuffed with croissants, a muffin and even a piece of pie.

“You’re having a true athlete’s diet I see?” he jokes.

“I am, vlaai is always the best way to start the day. Everyone in Maastricht will agree with me.”

Ant isn’t sure he heard Robin correctly. “You eat flies?”

Robin burst out laughing. “No, vlaai! It’s a type of pie from around this area, it’s really good.”

“Do you want a piece?”

“Uh, sure?” Ant replies, but what he doesn’t expect is for Robin to immediately shove his fork into his mouth, feeding António the pie. Ant feels his cheeks heat up at the implications of this, but when he looks at Robin, his old teammate is just looking at him expectantly. He tries to focus on the flavour and realises it really is as good as Robin told him. The pie has a dry cake-like texture and is filled with apricots, finding the right balance between sweet and sour. 

“Can I take one of these home? It’s so good!” 

“I don’t think so, but that just means that you have to come here more often,” Robin laughs.

“That doesn’t actually sound too bad. Good food, a beautiful area, and a free place to stay every time.”

Robin kicks his shin, but he has a fond expression on his face and Ant finds himself staring at the older man for a bit too long, before he eventually averts his gaze to the hilly landscape outside. 

-

“I thought we could go for a short cycle trip after this,” Robin tells him when they get off the boat two hours later. Ant finds himself instantly agreeing to the proposal, sitting on the boat for two hours made him restless and he’s excited to see more of the area.

Cycling through the hills of South Limburg on a hot spring afternoon, while wearing their casual clothes, turns out not to be the best idea either of them has had. They let themselves fall down in the grass on a hilltop two hours later, exhausted, sweaty, with their t-shirts clinging to their chests. 

Ant lays his forearm down on his eyes to protect them against the sun and feels himself almost falling asleep, when he feels Robin interlacing their fingers of his other hand. Robin’s hand is clammy from the sweat but it still somehow feels nice. It reminds him of when Robin grabbed his wrist this morning. It should have felt weird, holding hands with one of his best friends, but it doesn’t, and he realises he wouldn’t mind doing this with Robin more often.

“I don’t think the restaurant will let us in like this tonight,” Robin sighs.

“We could also just stay in and order something online?”

“No! I mean… I made a reservation and I do really want to take you to that place.” Robin’s voice turns soft at the end.

Ant squeezes his hand in return. “Okay, if you want to, then let’s go there.”

He lifts up his arm to look at Robin and he finds the other man looking back at him, pink dusting his cheeks. Somehow Robin manages to look really beautiful like this and Ant finds himself wiping away Robin’s sweaty hair from his forehead. The other man looks at him with such a soft expression that it is almost unbearable for him to keep looking and he tears his gaze away.

“Maybe we should go back to your place to change then?” Ant diverts the attention, while getting back up. Robin looks a bit disappointed but nods before getting up as well. It’s more quiet than usual when they’re cycling back to the bike rental store and even when they’re walking towards Robin’s house they barely speak. 

They both take a shower when they’re back at Robin’s place and he gratefully takes Robin's offer to go first. After he’s done showering and changed into a nice pair of jeans and a dark blue button up shirt, he decides to check his Instagram while waiting for Robin to be done. A lot of people already watched his stories and he has a few messages from his friends and fellow drivers telling him to enjoy his date with Robin. He knows they’re joking, but something about today made him see Robin in a different light. Still, his friends don’t have to know that and he wants to reply to them, telling them to fuck off, but Robin is done faster than he expected, so he puts away his phone.

When Robin comes out of the bathroom Ant finds himself checking the shorter man out -he looks really good in his black skinny jeans and tightly fitting grey jumper, hugging him in all the right places- before tearing his eyes away. He has to restrain himself; it’s too soon to let Robin know about these new feelings, whatever they may be.

-

“This place is really-“ Ant falls silent for a moment, looking around to search for the right word, “romantic?”

Robin’s cheeks turn slightly pink. “I thought you might like it,” he shrugs.

Ant takes another look around, his gaze falling on the silver cutlery sprawled out in front of them, the crystal wine glasses that contain their sparkly aperitifs, and the white candle standing in the middle of their table that lights up Robin’s face very nicely. Robin picked out a very fancy -and probably very expensive- restaurant. 

“It looks really nice, I didn’t think you would be into this kind of stuff.”

“I guess I’m not. Normally. But today is a special occasion,” Robin smiles shyly.

António feels his heart beating in his chest, not completely daring to hope for something, before hesitantly looking Robin in the eyes and asking, “What makes it special?” 

Robin looks down and, even in the scarce candle lit room, Ant can see his cheeks turn red. He stays quiet for so long Ant isn’t sure he’s even going to answer him and he instinctively reaches over the table to put his hand over Robin’s, causing the other man to look back up at him.

“Because this was supposed to be our first date.” Robin answers in a small voice, “I was so sure before you liked me back, but after today I’m not so sure anymore.”

Robin looks so down and insecure and Ant wants to nothing more than to go over to the other side of the table and hug him. Unfortunately, he has to hold himself back in a public place like a restaurant, so the only thing he can do is interlace their fingers and squeezing the other man's hand.

“Please look at me, Robin,” he whispers. “I think I do really like you back, but I was just an idiot who didn't realise it until today.”

Robin looks back up at him, but there is still some insecurity in his eyes. "Are you sure?"

António smiles at him. "Yes I am sure. And I'd like to go on another date with you, if today was anything to go by."

"I'm glad," Robin smiles back at him and Ant is sure he can get used this.

Once they're outside again, stomachs filled with good food and wine, Ant can't help but steal a kiss and is delighted when he feels Robin smiling into it and kissing him back. He intertwines their fingers while they're walking back to Robin's apartment, all nervousness between them gone and replaced by a positive giddiness that suits their new found love.

**Author's Note:**

> Le Bon Vivant is the name of the restaurant in Maastricht they are eating at in the end. It really does exist, but it is quite fancy and expensive!
> 
> "Ik had een reservering gemaakt voor de brunchboot voor twee personen." = "I've made a reservation for the brunch boat for two people."  
> "Welkom aan boord! Jullie zijn precies op tijd, dus zoek snel een plekje uit" = "Welcome aboard! You're right on time, so try to find a spot quickly."
> 
> Comments and kudos are as always very appreciated :)


End file.
